"A middle-aged carpenter beats his 91-year old mother to death and goes to work the following day, leaving the body for his wife to find. An 82-year old woman is jailed for 10 months for stealing fried chicken. Like nearly all defendants in Japan, they both plead guilty. What happens between plea and sentencing is the subject of True Crime Japan. In this fascinating crime book journalist and longtime Japan resident Paul Murphy provides a glimpse of...

In 1926, during the Prohibition, Joe Coughlin defies his strict law-and-order upbringing by climbing a ladder of organized crime that takes him from Boston to Cuba where he encounters a dangerous cast of characters who are all fighting for their piece of the American dream.

A propulsive and ambitious novel as electrifying as The Wire, from a writer hailed as the West Coast's Richard Price-a mesmerizing epic of crime and opportunity, race, revenge, and loyalty, set in the chaotic streets of South Central L.A. in the wake of one of the most notorious and incendiary trials of the 1990s. At 3:15 p.m. on April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted three white Los Angeles Police Department officers charged with using excessive force...

"A powerful collection of stories about women who murdered--for revenge, for love, and even for pleasure--rife with historical details that will have any true crime junkie on the edge of their seat"--Amazon.com. In every tragic story, men are expected to be the killers. There are countless studies and works of art made about male violence. However, when women are featured in stories about murder, they are rarely portrayed as predators. They're the...

"Be careful to whom you tell your darkest secrets Selena Murphy is commuting home from her job in the city when the train stalls out on the tracks. She strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat, and their connection is fast and easy. The woman introduces herself as Martha and confesses that she's been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When...

Murder-a dark, shameful deed, the last resort of the desperate or a vile tool of the greedy. And a very strange obsession. But where did this fixation develop? And what does it tell us about ourselves? Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, prose and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism. At a point during the birth of the modern era, murder entered the popular psyche, and...

On the losing side of a bloody East Coast crime war, Danny Ryan is now on the run. The Mafia, the cops, the FBI all want him dead or in prison. With his little boy, his elderly father and the tattered remnants of his loyal crew of soldiers, he makes the classic American migration to California to start a new life. But the Feds track him down and want Danny to do them a favor that could make him a fortune or kill him. And when Hollywood starts shooting...

"Ex-black-ops-specialist-turned-strip-club-bouncer Joe Brody has a new qualifica-tion to add to his resume: an alliance of New York City's mob bosses has deemed him its "sheriff." In the straight world, when you "see something" you "say something" to the law. In the bent world, they call Joe. Still reeling from a particularly difficult operation, and having plummeted back into the drug and alcohol addiction that got him kicked out of the military...

"Mike Hodge--veteran of the Great War, big shot of the Chicago Tribune, medium fry--probably shouldn't have fallen in love with Annie Walsh. Then again, maybe the man who killed Annie Walsh should have known better than to trifle with Mike Hodge. In Chicago, David Mamet has created a [book] that roars through the [1920s] Windy City's underground on its way to a thunderclap of a conclusion"--

From the author of the wonderfully ingenious novel After the Crash, a thrilling tale of a murder that takes place in Claude Monet's garden and the mystery that surrounds it. Giverny, France. During the day, the town is the home of the famous artist Claude Monet and the gardens where he painted his Water Lilies. But once the tourists have gone, there is a darker side to the peaceful French village. This is the story of thirteen days that begin with...